Interference in telecommunication networks is becoming more and more problematic as demand for wireless services continues to grow and allocated frequency bands become compressed. Interference can result in noisy links in analog transmissions, and limited range, dropped calls, or low data rates for digital transmissions. Once an interfering signal is detected, the interfering signal can be characterized to possibly identify the source of the interfering signal.
Sources of interference can be internal to a telecommunication network or can be external to the telecommunication network. External sources of interference can include not only signal transmitters, but also sources of impulse noise created whenever a flow of electricity is abruptly started or stopped. Many external, interfering signals cannot be identified using typical techniques and the source of the signal must be located by hunting for the source. However, the variety of different possible sources of interference and the ability of some sources to interfere from great distances can make locating the source difficult. Identifying a source of interference therefore requires collecting data from various geographic locations, which can be time consuming.
In addition to interference, operators of telecommunication networks and/or wireless carriers can benefit generally from understanding their network performance, including understanding network coverage, signal strength within network, locations of dead spots, variation in coverage and network performance with time of day, variation in coverage and network performance with changing weather conditions, etc.
Still further, operators of telecommunication networks and/or wireless carriers can benefit from understanding the signal profiles within their frequency bands of interest within their operating area and/or outside of their operating area, as well as other frequency bands. For example, a wireless carrier may look to license frequency bands that are not occupied to expand its services.